After an ever so brief, unbilled cameo appearance in the final scene of the Monogram musical comedy "Swing Parade Of 1946", Belita started seeing a Hartford born actor named Joel James McGinnis, who went by the stage name Joel Riordan. Things got serious rather quickly. The couple eloped and married quietly in Ventura, California on May 3, 1946. Joel remained involved in Belita's career until they split in 1955. In December of 1955, Joel brought a divorce suit to a Los Angeles court, alleging Belita deserted him in September of the previous year. Belita returned with a cross complaint, alleging cruelty and that he had threatened violence in making her sign a seven-year managerial contract which gave him forty percent of her earnings. In the end, the divorce went through just days before Christmas in 1956. She got out of the contract but the divorce cost her five thousand dollars as part of the terms of a property settlement. She claimed in her petition that he beat her twice in public, knocked her down in the street and made her nervous. She told reporters, "he hit me rather frequently when he was more intoxicated than usual." Friend Bill Unwin later asserted that the volatility of the relationship was very much a two way street and both Belita and Joel knew how to push each other's buttons.